5 Must Read Tips for Women in Transition

"Living through a major life transition creates very strong emotions. Whether these emotions are positive or negative, there is nothing more dangerous to one’s financial well-being than making major money decisions when emotions are running high. However, you will likely need triage strategies for handling necessary financial decisions during your major transition. Although your circumstances are unique to you, women in transition face similar challenges.

Have you recently lost someone close to you? Are you in the midst of a difficult divorce? Have you recently been laid off or contemplating a career change? Are you experiencing life-altering health challenges?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are a woman experiencing a major life transition. It is important to realize that as a woman facing a new life challenge, you now have very special financial needs and you are certainly not alone.

Living through a major life transition creates very strong emotions. Whether these emotions are positive or negative, there is nothing more dangerous to one’s financial well-being than making major money decisions when emotions are running high. However, you will likely need triage strategies for handling necessary financial decisions during your major transition. Although your circumstances are unique to you, women in transition face similar challenges.

Most women I meet going through transition tell me that feel like they are in limbo; like they are stuck in a thick fog and can’t see or think clearly. If you feel this way, you are not alone. Most people get stuck in limbo as a basic coping function to protect themselves from stress and negative emotions.

But this state of limbo can also be dangerous when the fog gives us permission to make bad choices with our money, or avoid handling the important stuff like paying bills. Whether bills go unpaid, or you start spending impulsively, you can find yourself looking back with an incredible amount of regret. We’ve met women who have completely depleted their IRA’s to travel the world with their best girlfriend to help cope with the loss of their husband. We have also met women who had not paid their utility bill or mortgage for months and found themselves facing serious credit consequences. Meanwhile, you may also be in a vortex of swirling, conflicting advice from well-meaning friends and family.

Over the many years that our firm has attracted women in transition, we have found that there are 5 critical keys to maintaining your well-being throughout the transition:

Give yourself time. Don’t sell your home. Don’t re-allocate all of your retirement savings. Don’t invest your life insurance benefits. Give yourself at least 6 months to a year to work through your state of limbo before you make any substantial financial decisions. Remember, there is nothing more dangerous to your financial well-being than making big money decisions while emotions are running high. You should seek professional advice on what decisions you can defer and what decisions you cannot defer.

Ask for help. Although I recommend you delay large financial decisions, there are every day decisions that have to be made whether you feel up to it or not. Paying your bills is the biggest. If you are struggling to keep up with your daily financial responsibilities, ask for help. Consider asking a close friend or family member to step in and take over this function for you for a while. Or if you are not comfortable with that, consider hiring a bookkeeper or accountant to handle it for you. Of course this might incur some cost, but it will be well worth it if it means protecting your credit and keeping your current with your monthly financial obligations.

Buy yourself financial safety. Keep your money as liquid as possible, especially if you are experiencing a transition as a result of death of a spouse, divorce, or significant windfall (sale of a business, loss of a parent, etc.). Liquid assets, such as cash and short-term investments, give you the safety net you need in an emotional time of transition. After 6 months or a year, your needs will change. You will want to preserve as many options for you as possible, and staying liquid and “safe” does just that.

Try to stay healthy. You will make better choices if you eat right, sleep enough, rest or meditate, and make time for exercise every day. The only person you need to focus on at this point is you. Whether you have children or others that depend on your care, you can only be your best for them if you take care of you first and foremost.

Protect yourself. There are many devious business people in our world that look for an opportunity to take advantage of people in transitions; especially women. Many of the women I work with have unintentionally vented their emotional vulnerability during their transition, often through outlets like social media. Be very careful of the people offering help and always have a trusted friend, family member, or advisor as a sounding board before you choose to engage anyone or any business to help you.

Hopefully your transition is one that is the result of something great happening in your life, like having your first baby, or selling your business. Unfortunately the women we are introduced to usually are experiencing a very painful event in life. Regardless of whether your big life transition is positive or negative, these are the 5 most important things to consider when it comes to your financial well-being. I wish you peace and prosperity and I know with confidence, that one day your fog will lift, and you will have the courage to take that necessary step forward in the next great stage of your life.

The opinions in this piece are for informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or investment recommendations. To determine which investment(s) may be appropriate for you, consult a financial advisor prior to investing. Market performance is historical and there is no guarantee of future returns.

In 1970, Graham Nash wrote the song Teach Your Children. His struggles with his own father inspired him to produce a song that evokes so much real emotion for almost everyone who hears it. Graham Nash (from the liner notes of their 1991 boxed set): "###em/em###”Parents have the ability to be the greatest teachers on earth, helping their kids see the realities of life through their own experiences. The only thing that stands in the way is a little thing called "owning our mistakes".Sometimes bad financial habits are born out of necessity. Sometimes they are from just making bad choices. In 2005, I found myself in a do-or-die financial firestorm that was a result of years of poor decisions. Until 2005, I was living like royalty. I drove very nice cars, wore $2,000 suits, ate in all the best restaurants, traveled first class, and soon found myself in that place I lectured others to avoid at all costs. Despite my substantial income, my credit cards were maxed, my checking account was overdrawn by $210, and I wasn’t getting paid for 2 more weeks. I had zero purchasing power; not even $25 for the copay at my son’s pediatrician. I had completely mismanaged my finances and had become the picture perfect definition of the hypocritical, reckless spendthrift I had built a career lecturing others on how to avoid.I had no choice but to raid my retirement accounts just to put food on the table. It was the low point in my financial life. I woke up every day embarrassed at my failures, living in constant fear that I would lose my job, lose our home, and lose our friends. I hated myself. I often thought about how much better off my family would be if they could somehow collect the $4 million in life insurance I had. But I eventually realized that this was bottom, and that I could make the difficult choices to right our financial ship. I sat down and faced the truth that I had made some serious money mistakes, and I began to forgive myself. I got the professional help I needed to make better choices, and stay accountable to some very challenging financial goals.By 2011, after six years of excruciating discipline, I was in a much different financial position than I was six long years earlier. I had eliminated all of our debt (except my primary mortgage), regained control of my credit, and had accumulated enough savings that I could retire from corporate America. And I did.After retiring in 2011, I chose to make it my purpose in life to teach others how to own their financial mistakes, fix them, and pass those invaluable lessons learned onto their children.Whether your bills are paid in full at the end of every month, or you stretched a little too far to buy a vacation home and a fancy car, or you have to do some hocus pocus to make ends meet, there's a good chance you have some less-than-perfect money habits. These habits can have a profound effect on your children, just as mine did. Despite what you may be thinking, your not-so-perfect money habits can serve an incredible purpose and ultimately be one of the greatest gifts you ever give your children.Most young adults are entering the grown up world without basic knowledge of how to balance a monthly budget or save for their future. Many are assuming massive debt in the form of car loans and student loans and doing so without a clear vision of how begin repayment of these debts one day. They are not being taught the basic principles of simple versus compound interest, and how debt can cost them significantly over their lifetime. Public schools and universities have done a better job in increasing exposure to financial education; however these efforts alone are largely unsuccessful and must be supported by good financial “home-schooling”. The theories and opinions learned in a personal finance class cannot compare to the knowledge gained by witnessing and learning from the practical choices, mistakes, and real-life money decisions kids can see at home with their parents.###strong/strong###From a very young age, children pay close attention to how money is treated in their home. Many parents are missing the opportunity to use the observations as teaching opportunities. Moms and dads I meet tells me they prefer to keep quiet when there are struggles or disagreements about money, especially with things such as debt, paying for college, monthly budgeting and family income. They keep quiet to protect their kids from their mistakes. This can’t be further from the truth, however. My personal experience, and my experience working with families and multi-generational wealth for the past 20 years has taught me that parents who make significant money mistakes and involve their kids in the lessons learned from these mistakes, can see a much greater impact on seeing their kids make smart choices as they enter adulthood.Children know when their parents lack perfection. Lecturing them on how to make perfect choices about money will only drive them to more compulsive, destructive money decisions. The fear I initially see from parents in speaking the truth, is that their child will be their little copy-cat, making the same mistakes they do. My experience has been quite the opposite. I have found that our kids and the kids of my clients are making much wiser choices with their money because of our honesty about our own mistakes, and the lessons we learned from those mistakes.I recommend parents take a good honest look in the mirror; write down your money mistakes, past and present. Share these with your kids. It’s an exercise with dual benefits. First, it forces you to sit and become honest with yourself about where you may have mismanaged your finances. Awareness is the first step toward choosing a new path. Second, it allows you to become vulnerable and authentic in your relationship with your child, deepening their respect for you, and showing that a true leader owns their mistakes and works hard at fixing them. That’s a priceless life lesson that seems to be missing quite a bit in the “school of parenting”.Here a few habits to begin teaching your children as you become aware of your lack of financial perfection and strive to become a better teacher for your kids.1. Own your mistakes and devote yourself to fixing themFirst things first; forgive yourself for not being perfect with money. If the best time to become a great financial steward of your money was 20 years ago, then the next best time is right now. Become aware of your mistakes, own them by writing them down, and be willing to learn how to fix your mistakes. If you don't know the best habits for using credit cards or how to make a household budget, seek professional help and learn with your child.2. Create a family spending planMost families I meet make a good living and have substantial income, yet at the end of the month they often tell us they don’t know where all the money went. Spending everything you make, or even worse, spending more than your make is certain path toward insurmountable debt and poor lessons for the kids. Consider setting a weekly family budget meeting. Sunday nights after family dinner is a great time for the whole family to sit down and review the family bills and the upcoming family expenses for the next week. This way the kids can see exactly what it costs on a weekly basis to manage the household finances. “Dad, why can’t I buy a new iPhone 6s for $800?” If this is a question that has been asked in your family, this little exercise in weekly family budget planning can provide the very quick and understandable answer that puts the kibosh on that question, once and for all.Be willing to admit when you make mistakes with your weekly budgeting and overspend on non-necessary items. Be open in discussing what you could do better as a family.3. Save; no matter whatNot everyone believes they can afford to save. I teach clients that the first person to get paid every pay period is you. 10-15% of your take home pay should go into savings before any bills get paid, even if this is as little as $10 per paycheck. It is critical to teach your kids the importance of investing in themselves and paying themselves before they pay anyone else. Ideally, your savings should include an emergency cash fund as well as a fund for your retirement, like a 401k or an IRA.4. Protect your creditMost everyone I know has debt; mortgage debt, car debt, student debt, credit card debt. Debt has become part of the fiber of America. In fact House Republicans are proposing a $3.8 trillion dollar budget to Congress which will keep our country spending more than we make for the next decade. You as a parent must step up and show your children how important it is to properly manage and protect their credit. Even if you struggle to pay your outstanding debt, paying something is better than ignoring it. If you are at a point where you have gotten a little over your skis with debt, involve your children in a discussion about how you got to this point and about handling your responsibilities going forward. Then call those you owe and make manageable payment arrangements with a timetable of when your debt will be paid off. It’s an incredible lesson to teach your kids; that sometimes we just have to deal with cleaning up financial mistakes, no matter how hard it is.5. Agree to disagreeDisagreements about money can be some of the most damaging dynamics in a family environment. I meet families all the time who have different priorities when it comes to money. In 2013, Fidelity conducted a study about couples being on the same page about money. Their study concluded that 8 out of 10 couples believed they were in synch with money, when in fact they had very different priorities and beliefs when it came to money and how it should be used.It’s no wonder why so many families battle over money issues, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We encourage families to sit and have discussions about differing views on money. Where do we agree about money? Where do we struggle to agree? Can we truly listen to one another’s beliefs and work to support one another despite our differences?This is not an easy exercise and families who have a hard time tackling this should seek professional help. This is some of the most important work we do in our private practice at Gebhardt Group, Inc. (our private practice affiliate of 401k Masters, LLC). We work with families to help them establish agreements about money, especially in the areas where there is much disagreement. Family fights about money that are not resolved are some of the most harmful interactions that can happen, especially in the presence of the kids.I’ve shared my mistakes with my children and their financial habits are better off because of them. My oldest son is saving his money to buy his first car in a little over a year, and he’s already contemplating the best ways to save for and pay for his college education. My younger son saves his money for Calvin and Hobbes books, but nonetheless, he’s learned the important lesson in valuing money and what it can buy you if you treat it with respect.As parents, there's nothing we want more than for our children to do better than we have in life. Helping them learn from our mistakes is a big part of the process.“You, who are on the road, must have a code that you can live by. And so become yourself, because the past is just a good bye. Teach your children well. Their father's hell did slowly go by. And feed them on your dreams. The one they pick's, the one you'll know by.Don't you ever ask them why? If they told you, you would cry. So just look at them and sigh. And know they love you.And you of tender years can't know the fears that your elders grew by. And so please help them with your youth. They seek the truth before they can die. Teach your parents well. Their children's hell will slowly go by. And feed them on your dreams. The one they pick's, the one you'll know by.Don't you ever ask them why? If they told you, you would cry. So just look at them and sigh. And know they love you.”Matthew Grishman is a Principal & Wealth Advisor at Gebhardt Group, Inc. Matthew has 21 years of experience guiding families, entrepreneurs, and athletes through the complexities of financial planning and living their life’s true purpose.Important Disclosures: CA Insurance License #0D99998. Matthew Grishman is an Investment Advisor Representative of Gebhardt Group, Inc., a Registered Investment Advisor, and 401k Masters, LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor, as governed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Gebhardt Group, Inc. and 401k Masters, LLC are affiliated companies.###em/em###

ETF’s are big topic of conversation at Gebhardt Group. Clients and friends are asking us quite often to help them better understand what they really are. I am amazed at how many people ask that question. Amazed because so many of the people asking me that question already own them inside of their 401k, whether they realize it or not.

ETF is an acronym that stands for “exchange-traded fund.” ETF’s have been around since the early 1990’s, but really did not gain much popularity in 401k plans until about 10 years ago. Although ETF’s have begun to gain popularity, the ETF market still pales in comparison to the mutual fund market; about $1.3 trillion in ETF’s versus almost $15 trillion in mutual funds.

To truly understand ETF’s, let’s take a look at history and see the product evolution that lead to their creation. ETF’s were born from the progression of actively managed mutual funds and passively managed index funds. Let’s look at both of these product types first, so that we may better understand the distinction of ETF’s.

Actively Managed Mutual Funds

A mutual fund is a big basket of individual investments (like stocks such as IBM, Proctor & Gamble, Apple, Coca-Cola, etc.). Every day, the fund issues new shares to those who want to own a “slice”. It is the simplest way for an investor to diversify their money with a small investment amount (most fund companies let you purchase shares for as little as $2,000). The best way to understand this structure and its benefits is to think of an extra-large pizza pie with a handful of toppings; pepperoni, sausage, olives, mushrooms, onions, and peppers (sort of makes you hungry, right?). You cut the pizza into eight slices and share it with a few friends. Each slice has a sampling of all of the selected toppings on it. The best part of having multiple toppings is that if one topping is bad, say the olives, one can just pick them off without ruining the whole pizza slice.

Mutual funds work much the same way. If all of your retirement money was invested in one individual stock, and that stock became worthless, you would be in big trouble. But if your retirement money was invested inside of a mutual fund, where you had a “slice” that contained samplings, or fractional shares of hundreds of stocks, you would be much less concerned if one “went bad”.

So who manages the mutual fund and what are they trying to accomplish?

In exchange for paying upwards of 2.5% to 3% per year in total fees, portfolio managers hope that their active management can take advantages of mispriced stocks or trends in the market to “beat” the overall market return. Unfortunately for most portfolio managers and their fund investors, history has proven that hope has not been a successful strategy, as the majority of fund managers have failed to outperform their benchmarks.

Passively Managed Index Mutual Funds

Imagine the pizza pie we used to describe an actively managed mutual fund. However instead of a handful of toppings on your pizza pie, imagine every topping ever created; 500 to be exact. Each slice would have a small sampling of 500 different toppings. I know what you’re thinking; it would almost be impossible to distinguish the taste of one topping from another. But that was the belief of John Bogle, founder of Vanguard Funds.

Mr. Bogle launched the first index mutual fund in 1976 based on his belief that it was nearly impossible for any manager to beat the markets by actively trading a handful of stocks. He also believed it was in an investor’s best interest to stay fully invested in the entire market at all times, riding it up and down for a long period of time.

Bogle’s first index fund tracked the Standard and Poors 500 Index, also known as the S&P 500. It was called the Vanguard 500 (VFINX). By owning all 500 stocks of the S&P 500, Bogle was able to promise investors that his fund would keep up with the broad index of stocks. Since his fund was not actively managed, it costs very little to operate, which translated to a very low cost for investors.

Wall Street and the financial advisory community were not fans of Mr. Bogle and his new invention. They quickly slandered the Vanguard 500 Fund by referring to it as “Bogle’s Folly”. It was the belief of Wall Street and most financial advisors that their primary job was to beat the broad market and that Bogle’s invention was a joke. Unfortunately the joke was on Wall Street and their financial advisors as so few actually were actually able to beat their benchmarks and Bogle’s Vanguard 500 Fund, especially once you added their 2.5%-3% each year in fees.

Index funds have gained in popularity over the past three decades. Today there are hundreds of index funds, each tracking their own benchmark and typically at tiny fraction of the cost of actively managed mutual funds. They are some of the most popular fund offerings inside company-sponsored 401k plans.

What is an ETF?

An ETF is a type of index fund. It is similar to an index fund in that it has the same goal of an index fund: To provide investors with a low cost product that offers broad market returns. There are two important differences, however.

First, index funds are like traditional mutual funds in that they are only priced once per day, at the close of the market session. The average price of all the underlying securities are calculated after the market closes, and the fund company posts the net asset value per share (NAV) based on the aggregate of all of those prices. In contrast, ETF’s are a fixed basket of securities that trade all day long on the stock market, with the basket itself behaving more like an individual stock. The price of that basket of stocks can fluctuate all day long based on the underlying values of the holdings within the ETF. This can give investors much greater liquidity (ability to buy or sell shares quickly and at any time the market is open) than relying on a mutual fund or index fund that only prices itself once per day after the market closes.

The second main difference is the cost of trading mutual funds and index funds, compared to the cost of trading an ETF. Mutual Funds and Index funds often have significant transaction fees associated with buying or selling shares. ETF’s often trade commission-free.

ETF’s Version 2.0

As ETF’s have become more popular, more and more have been designed to do more than just mimic an index fund. Sector specific ETF’s have become quite popular, where all of the holdings inside an ETF are from one specific sector, like healthcare or technology. Many fee-only advisors have adopted ETF’s into their practices as efficient tools to actively manage client portfolios and gain exposure to multiple sectors of the market.

But “DIY-ers” beware. There are risks and complexities associated with buying and selling ETF’s. If you are a do-it-yourself investor and you want to have the flexibility of an ETF’s low trading cost and performance similar to an index fund, it’s best to use only the largest, most widely traded ETFs on the market, the ones designed to match well-known benchmarks. The smaller sector-based ETF’s often have much less liquidity on a daily basis, as fewer shares are traded compared to the big index-based ETF’s. Also, like mutual funds, ETF performance can vary widely from issuer to issuer, even those that seem to track the same benchmark or sector.

ETF’s have become the next great innovation in the mutual fund/index fund universe. They can be very efficient investment products and are showing their rise in popularity by popping up more and more inside company-sponsored 401k plans. If you own a 401k plan and you choose to go at it alone, selecting your own ETF’s, please do your homework. Managing an active portfolio of ETF’s in not for novice investors with a weekend hobby. Work with a professional when at all possible.

Help, Please!

If you can’t find a local professional willing or qualified to help you with the ETF’s in your 401k, we’d be happy to. This is your retirement we’re talking about; let’s get it done right. Whether your plan has actively managed mutual funds, passively managed index funds, ETF’s or all of the above, our online GPS tool can give you the turn-by-turn guidance you’ve been looking for to help with your 401k.

Matthew Grishman is a Principal & Wealth Advisor at Gebhardt Group, Inc. Matthew has 19 years of experience guiding families, entrepreneurs, and athletes through the complexities of financial planning and living their life’s true purpose.

The opinions in this piece are for informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or investment recommendations. To determine which investment(s) may be appropriate for you, consult a financial advisor prior to investing. Market performance is historical and there is no guarantee of future returns.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES

Jim Gebhardt is a Registered Representative of and securities offered through Brokers International Financial Services, LLC. Member SIPC. Brokers International Financial Services, LLC is not an affiliated company. The Registered Representatives and Investment Advisor Representatives associated with this website may discuss and/or transact securities business and/or offer financial advice only with the residents of the states they are licensed in.